The long and the short of it is that City and Spurs have some difficult games coming up while Liverpool and Villa have an easier run in to the final two games of the season. With only 5-6 games left, this morning I projected each team's points in their remaining games up to the penultimate round in the league.
In summary, City should be slightly ahead of everyone else. City and Spurs will drop a lot of points but I wouldn't be surprised if Spurs are still within 3 points of the current leaders for 4th place. To add complexity, Liverpool has the easiest schedule of the 4. I fully expect them to pick up 7-9 points vaulting them right back into the mix. Villa could slip, but they could also concievably pick up enough points to be within a game of everyone else as well.
So, it's looking like the race for 4th place could be essentially even going into the last 2 games for each of the 4 teams. Each team's last match should gain them 3 points. Coincidently, the second to the last match for each team sees them playing each other or the current league leaders. Bottom line, I think the race for 4th will be decided on May 1st and May 5th - within the same week. It should be very exciting if this happens. Even if it doesn't, it'll still be exciting since nothing this season has played out as planned.
